But given the historical narrative of desegregation and voting rights and mental health, among others, do you think Alabama has learned its lesson? Read the essays, then take our poll below.

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Why wait? Because we want to, by Charles J. Dean

I've been asked to answer this question about Alabama: Why do we wait?

You ask, wait for what?

Charles J. Dean

The answer is why do we wait to be forced as a state to follow the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States?

Time and time again in the last half of the 20th century (and let's not even get into the middle of the 19th century with the Civil War) Alabama has had to be forced to obey the Constitution and law of the land.

And now, once again, the federal government has come calling, charging that the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women has "a history of unabated staff-on-prisoner sexual abuses and harassment." A Department of Justice investigation has labeled conditions at the prison as unconstitutional.

The state has responded by forming a task force to fix the problems. It appears not to be waiting, this time.

But why did Alabama wait all those other times? Why didn't the state act? There are a lot of answers to that, but I think it comes down to this one: Because it didn't want to.

You can say a lot more: It would have cost too much; generations of Jim Crow had made action impossible; other Southern states were just as resistant; knowledge about good mental health care was almost non-existent; churches failed to be moral beacons.

All of it, and more, reinforced the "we don't want to" mindset. And when federal forces insisted the state act, Alabama's other attitude showed up: Make us!

Governing Magazine in 2000 picked up on that mindset when it called Alabama the "make me" state and the federal court order capital of the nation.

Alabama just didn't want to. And the result was the state dumped all its years of unconstitutional, unlawful actions in the lap of the federal government and judges to fix.

Maybe former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley said it best: "We holler about the federal courts having too much power," said Baxley. "But if you have states' rights, you have states' responsibilities. The state refused to face up to its responsibilities time and time again. We abdicated our power."

Why wait? Because our home's in the Deep South , by Wesley Vaughn

Although Alabama fears the overbearing oversight of the federal government, it has historically dragged its feet enough to attract federal intervention.

Wesley Vaughn

But why? One book that peers into the different cultures and heritages of regions in the United States seeks to explain just that.

In "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America," Colin Woodard divides the country into 11 regions — each with their own unique founding and characteristics.

"It's because of these centuries-old traditions about the role of government or what the desirable society is and each region has had a different answer to that," Woodward said.

Central and southern Alabama are members of the Deep South while north Alabama is a part of Greater Appalachia, according to Woodard.

Although Appalachia has distrusted the aristocratic culture seen in the Deep South region, the two cultures have found common ground in their distrust of the federal government.

"The Deep South and Appalachia share a hostility to government intrusion and regulation," Woodard said. "They come from different places (but) currently there is an alliance."

Appalachia derived from the independently minded descendants of the war-torn Britannic areas, whereas the Deep South was founded by "oligarchic planters transplanting the fully formed West Indies slave colony system."

Other regions are more proactive in addressing issues.

"Yankeedom is the other extreme," Woodard said. "Their task was to create a more godly and perfect society on Earth. The individual was subordinate to that. What has remained is that utopian sense of 'we can create a better society here now through shared institutions.'"

It's often difficult for regions to eschew their long-held traditions.

"Cultures evolve and change, but what you don't see is if a culture has a strong cultural values, the government doesn't change much over time," Woodard said.

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